Escape Plan
directed by Mikael Hafstrom
This 2013 release was a solid action movie that was, strangely enough, the first to feature eighties action film icons Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger as co-leads. This film is something that really would have been better made in the eighties during both men's salad days. It says something perhaps not so good about the crop of current Hollywood action heroes that I can't immediately think of anyone younger than Sly and Ah-nuld (besides Mark Wahlberg) who could have given this film the sort of testosterone heavy swagger that its two leads attempt to bring across. The leading men aren't as believable in these roles as they would have been thirty years ago but who else could be cast in these parts? Justin Timberlake? 😃 They may be past their prime physically but each actor brings a sense of gravitas and well masculinity that is needed for these characters.
Stallone mumbles and Schwarzenegger smirks but what else is new. The story is almost painfully paint by numbers predictable but that's okay for these types of films. You don't watch a film like this for its engaging and surprising story line. You watch to see the put upon heroes struggle, be betrayed, almost fail and then rise above it all to deliver some truly righteous a$$-kickings. And this movie delivers in that regard. And when is the last time you heard Schwarzenegger give extended monologues in his native German? And they even made sense for the story. Schwarzenegger looks like he's having more fun than Stallone throughout the film.
In case you somehow hadn't heard the Republican members of the House of Representatives could not come together to support the American Health Care Act (AHCA). I don't have a lot to write on this at the moment both because (1) I've already written at length why I think that the law (PPACA or ObamaCare) that the AHCA was designed to replace is destined for a slow ignominious demise and (2) my Day Job supervisor has made it crystal clear what my true priorities are during quarter close. And they aren't blogging. But I do just want to say that I think that both the defenders and detractors of ObamaCare are missing some critical points by getting lost in the partisan weeds of denying President Trump a win or trying to ascertain who is up and who is down in the Byzantine politics of Washington D.C.
Numbers don't lie. PPACA is a bad deal for younger healthier people. It doesn't reflect their expected value or risk. It's mispriced. They will, all else equal, continue to avoid enrolling in the expected or promised numbers. That's not going to change. The other thing which isn't going to change is that some of the very people who for the past seven years ran around spitting at ObamaCare, waving "Obama is a monkey" signs and voting for people who swore blood oaths to rip up the PPACA root and branch, turned out to have a different feeling about ObamaCare when Uncle Bud was covered for the cancer meds he needed or Cousin Sherri finally got enrolled in a program to help with opioid addiction. There are relatively few people who will, if push comes to shove, place their ideology over their survival. They won't brag about this. It's not the stuff of heroic stories. But it is human nature. And even a lot of big bad Republicans who wanted to kill Obamacare still flinched away from taking away popular benefits.
Now that there is Republican control of the executive branch with all of the awesome discretionary prerogatives of that come with it, Trump and his minions could accidentally on purpose help along ObamaCare to an early grave. And there wouldn't be too much that Democrats could do about it. Or given Trump's desperate need for acclamation, he could attempt to reshape the PPACA via executive fiat and administrative choice into something that keeps coverage for many voters but slows skyrocketing premium and deductible growth. I don't think this will work even if Trump were a detail oriented policy wonk, which he is most assuredly not. So the most likely scenario is that the PPACA continues to limp along until the next midterms and then the one after that and so on. It's never going to be unpopular enough to kill. But it will never be popular enough to fix either.
One of my favorite comedians was the English humorist and variety show host Benny Hill. A regular show gag was the extent to which men would go to get a gander at women. It didn't much matter whether the women were partially dressed or completely undressed (the latter was never shown on the show-just implied). Men just liked to look. Men would make utter fools of themselves doing so. This was all done for laughs. Hill's brand of admittedly oft puerile humor fell out of style in the eighties with an ascendant feminist movement. Recently the actors Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sarah Paulson touched on this style of humor when, at an event for American Horror Story, Gooding attempted to lift up Paulson's dress. At the time of this post I don't know if this was a spontaneous prank on Gooding's part, something pre-planned by both Gooding and Paulson, or some sort of in character reference to their roles on the show, but Paulson didn't appear to take offense. She just slapped Gooding's hands away. But we live in the age of the internet and twitter so of course there were plenty of people who rushed to take offense on Paulson's behalf.
Rogue Lawyer
by John Grisham
Remember the movie The Lincoln Lawyer based upon the book of the same name by author Michael Connelly? Well author John Grisham certainly does. Grisham's novel Rogue Lawyer uses the same premise and seemingly even the same hero-a well, roguish, attorney who operates out of his vehicle, practices situational ethics, stays one step ahead of upset clients and angry law enforcement operatives, and has a black Man Friday of exceptional loyalty and impressive physical stature. Grisham doesn't try to hide the Connelly influence. In some respects I guess you could call it more of a tribute or deliberate tip of the hat as the title character, Sebastian Rudd, likes to read Connelly novels in his down time.
As mentioned Sebastian is the defense attorney of last resort for people who have run out of places to look for help. Some of the people Sebastian represents include victims of police brutality, mobsters on death row, and mentally challenged teens wrongly accused of horrible crimes. It doesn't matter to Sebastian (professionally speaking) if a sanctimonious ambitious politician was caught in bed with a dead woman AND a live boy. Sebastian is still going to fight to make the state prove its case. Sebastian insists on trying to force the state to obey the law down to the last little detail. If need be Sebastian will cheat in court or stretch the law to its breaking point, especially when he knows the state's representatives are also lying. This makes Sebastian less than popular with prosecutors, judges, and cops. Sebastian's courtroom adversaries have tried to make his professional life hell, get him disbarred or get him found in contempt of court. But cops often take Rudd's opposition more personally. They have tried to kill Rudd or his buddy Partner on at least three separate occasions. But as Rudd says they're still standing...or still ducking. Not all of Rudd's clients are innocent. Many of them aren't. Grisham uses this novel to articulate all the reasons why it's important to constrain the power of the state to put people in prison or deny them of life. So that portion of the novel was intriguing. It wasn't didactic.
Because sometimes you feel like a nut. And sometimes you don't. We talked before of how some people in other cultures consume insects. Although in this culture that practice is not widespread some people would like to endorse it and spread it. There are plenty of things that people consume in this culture, however which I find just as outrageous as eating insects. And of course not too far from me people are actually having a festival to celebrate the eating of cattle testicles and other delicacies.
DEERFIELD, MI - Members of American Legion Post 392 will host their 16th annual Testicle Festival on Saturday, March 18, offering savory options to patrons, such as cattle testicles and chicken gizzards.
The event, which will run from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., typically draws a good crowd, according to Legion member Al Rau. Rau said the Legion will start serving dinner around noon "until they run out of nuts." Beer and mixed drinks are $2 a pop and there is no cover charge. "You get baked beans, coleslaw and a roll with dinner, plus the nuts and the gizzards," Rau said. "They taste like chicken."
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Yummy! Nuts and gizzards! Even if I still ate meat there would still be some foods which I wouldn't eat for any amount of money. This is not a question of rationality. It is purely about an ick and/or taboo factor. I'm not eating sheep stomachs. I'm not eating hog intestines. And I damn sure won't be eating bull balls. I just have no desire to ingest bovine genetic material. But everyone gets to do their own thing for their diet.
Are there foods you won't eat under any circumstances?
Quarry's Vote
by Max Allan Collins
With the Quarry series you pretty much know what you're going to get. This installment was no exception. Quarry is a ruthless Vietnam War veteran hit man with, if not quite a heart of gold, then at least a healthy respect for doing things the right way. Generally speaking if you're not on the list then you are as safe as a new born babe around Quarry. He's not the type to lose his temper and run around murdering people because someone insulted him or dented his fender. Live and let live is Quarry's motto, well at least it is when he's not removing someone from the planet for pay. Quarry lives by a code you see. As this book, a reprint from the late eighties opens, Quarry is living the dream life. After some unpleasantness from earlier stories, Quarry is retired from the murder-for hire game. He has fallen in love with a much younger woman, Linda and somewhat impulsively married her. Linda is good looking, busty, sweet, young and naive, which is just what Quarry likes. Linda doesn't know anything about Quarry's past. She doesn't understand Quarry's infrequent cold moods or know about the numerous guns, cash and fake id's that Quarry has stashed around their home and elsewhere. All she understands is that Quarry is a quiet man who loves her. And Quarry does love her, to the extent that someone considered the deadliest killer in the continental United States can love someone. By Quarry's own admission he's head over heels in love with Linda. He has learned things about himself that he didn't know. By his standards he's gotten soft and fat. He and Linda operate a Midwestern hotel, diner and gas station.
The money's not great but Quarry isn't hurting for money. Quarry has found peace. In fact Linda has just informed him that he's going to be a father. Well you know that bad men like Quarry can never truly find peace. One day when Linda is away a man whom Quarry has never seen before stops by Quarry's house.
And then suddenly, nothing happened.
I find Rachel Maddow's voice to be about as engaging as a dentist's drill so I didn't watch her MSNBC show last night which she breathlessly and shamelessly hyped as having the low down scoop on Trump's tax returns. So this morning when I awoke, I wondered if I had missed anything of import. No. No I didn't. Maddow didn't have Trump's current tax returns. She didn't have any evidence of nefarious tax evasion by Trump or investigation of Trump by the IRS or other ominous government agencies with a reputation for not playing around. She didn't have evidence of secret ties to Russian oligarchs or Trump owned dachas on the Black Sea. No, what Ms. Maddow had was two pages from Trump's 2005 federal income tax return that showed that Trump paid $38 million in taxes on an income of about $150 million. Please try to hide your shock. This juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Ultimately, the reporting that Ms. Maddow eventually aired on Tuesday night’s show — two pages from a single, decade-old federal tax return — was less groundbreaking than the mere fact that a portion of the president’s records had surfaced at all. The journalist who obtained the records, David Cay Johnston, a former tax reporter for The New York Times, said that the documents arrived “over the transom” in his mailbox. Mr. Johnston even speculated on-air that Mr. Trump had sent the documents himself.
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